the final day

So, as we all brace ourselves for tomorrow, suffering from an intense mix of elevated excitement, trepidation, and abject terror, the polls yielded up some interesting changes. Gallup published its final estimate for the outcome of the presidential election: 55% Obama 44% McCain based on their final traditional voter poll which showed 53% for Obama and 42% for McCain. These numbers reflect the largest margin of victory for Obama recorded by Gallup throughout the campaign. Rasmussen's number remain somewhat less optimistic, showing Obama ahead 52-46. This week's Marist poll shows Obama ahead by 9 points (53-44), up from a 7-point margin last week. The RCP national average is back up to 7.5 points (51.7 to 44.2), indicating a reversal of any potential narrowing trends. Most importantly, the RCP average shows Obama to be drawing the absolute highest percentage of the vote that he has since they began tracking head-to-head McCain-Obama match-ups (that would be back in September 2007).

There have also been some new developments in the predictions of who will actually be voting in the election. Gallup polls indicate that despite the seemingly rampant Obamania among today's youth, there is no solid evidence that the percentage of young registered voters will be significantly higher than in 2004, although there will be even more of them due to Obama's registration drives. Pollster.com also notes that in polls which reach cellphone only respondents, Obama's lead is 3% greater than it is in polls that do not reach these voters. More importantly, the polls which have included cell-phone only users have shown no tightening of the national race whatsoever. Many analysts have claimed that if landline only pollsters reach a proportionate number of 18-30 year olds (the major demographic affected by the lack of cell-phone only users being polled), then it should not significantly effect poll outcomes. This assumes, however, that there are no significant demographic differences (such as educational level, religiosity, marital status, etc) between cell-phone only 18-30 year olds and non-cell-phone only 18-30 year olds. I find this somewhat difficult to believe; this might be unfounded, but I would assume that 18-30 year olds who are more "settled" (married, have children, etc) would be more likely to have landlines than those who are single and childless. There is also a relationship between educational attainment and age of marriage and age at birth of first child. My (relatively unscientific) assumption based on these factors would be that 18-30 year olds who rely entirely on cell phones would be more likely to vote for Obama than their land line owning counterparts. Regardless of which way these voters end up leaning, I am relatively sure that there are significant demographic differences (if only based on the fact that not a single person I know between 18 and 30 actually has a landline) between the two groups that should be taken into account by pollsters in the future.

The state polls look slightly less promising. Pennsylvania has clearly broken for McCain in a big way over the past few weeks, cutting Obama's lead in half, but I think that an average 7.6 point margin for Obama still looks fairly unbeatable as McCain is essentially out of time. Virginia and Ohio have both been unnervingly switched to the toss-up pile on realclear, but the latest polling in both shows a slight uptick for Obama, which hopefully indicates at least an end of McCain's gains. Florida polls remain very tight, but it's important to note that not a single poll poll has found McCain ahead since one taken by Strategic Vision (a Republican affiliated pollster) from 10/20 to 10/22. Finally, most state polls in VA and PA have 11/1 as the most recent polling date (the exception is the Reuters/Zogby poll which shows a 14-point lead for Obama in PA and the 6-point lead in VA both of which were recorded from 10/30 through 11/2); if there is in fact a widening in the national polls reflected primarily at the very beginning of November, then there might be improvement (or at least an end of any alleged narrowing of Obama's lead) in individual states on electiion day.